More than 3,000 candidates have filed their Certificates of Candidacy (COC) last week for the upcoming Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections scheduled this May.

Commission on Election (Comelec) records show that a total of 3,676 barangay aspirants and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) aspirants have already filed their COCs with the Comelec Zamboanga City district offices.

A total of 257 aspirants have filed for barangay captain, 97 of who filed under district 1 and 160 under district 2.

A total of 2,144 persons have filed for Barangay Kagawad. Of this number, 874 have filed under district 1 while 1,270 have filed under district 2.

For Sangguniang Kabataan aspirants, a total of 254 have filed for SK Chairman. Of this figure, 102 have filed under district 1 while 152 have filed under district 2.

A total of 1,021 have filed for Sangguniang Kabataan Kagawad, 442 aspirants have filed under district 1 and 579 for district 2.

The filing of COC for the barangay and SK elections started last April 14 and was expected to end on April 20 but was extended to April 21.

The elections are scheduled on May 14 this year.

Comelec Zamboanga City District 1 Election Officer Atty. Stephen Roy Cañete personally brought the COCs to Comelec Manila last Tuesday where these will be evaluated by the Comelec Manila Law Department.

He is expecting the numbers to still go down after being reviewed by the legal department.

The final list of candidates is expected to come out by the first week of May.

Cañete advised the candidates not to conduct early campaigning and for incumbents not to use government property for their campaign.

He also advised voters to check their precinct numbers as early as possible to avoid delays in voting during election day. (RGAAGo)